Headlines
▌SBF will be arraigned in New York next week
FTX founder SBF will be arraigned by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York next week. Court documents determine that SBF will be arraigned on Jan 3. SBF faces two counts of wire fraud and six counts of conspiracy. SBF partners Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang have already cooperated with prosecutors in misleading investors about the nature of the relationship between FTX and related trading firm Alameda Research. The requests may have provided the court with information about SBF's activities. SBF also faces civil cases from federal regulators, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Cryptocurrency
▌MicroStrategy announces to add 2,500 BTC
MicroStrategy announced that it would increase its holdings by 2,500 BTC. As of December 27, 2022, MicroStrategy held approximately 132,500 Bitcoins, which were acquired at a total value of approximately US$4.03 billion, with an average of approximately US$30,397 per Bitcoin.
▌Solana fell below the $10 mark for the first time in nearly two years
According to coingecko data, Solana’s native token SOL has fallen below the $10 mark. At the time of writing this article, it was $9.77, a drop of 11.8% in the past 24 hours and a drop of 20.5% in the past 7 days. It fell below $10 for the first time. Historical data shows that SOL hit a high of around $260 in November 2021, which means it has lost 96% of its value. The analysis believes that the FTX bankruptcy has hit Solana more severely than other cryptocurrencies, because FTX and Alameda Research have invested heavily in SOL and Solana ecology.
▌NFT sales fell around Christmas for the second consecutive year
According to data from NFT data tracker CryptoSlam, in 2021, NFT transaction volume dropped from $80.8 million on December 22 to $64.3 million on December 25. Compared with 2021, Christmas trading volume in 2022 will drop by 80%, due to the sluggish cryptocurrency market this year. This downturn has a great impact on NFT market transactions, resulting in a continuous decline in transaction volume for the past eight months. It is worth mentioning that the bottom price of Yuga Labs' Bored Ape Yacht Club rose before the holiday.
▌China is set to launch its first regulated NFT platform on January 1, 2023
China emerged as one of the first nations to embrace the industry. This was during a time the majority of the world’s population knew very little about the crypto-verse. Now that every country seems to be moving into the sector, China has made the decision to outright ban all things cryptocurrency. The nation evidently smashed notable Bitcoin mining giants and passed a broad ban on the sector. However, the country had mixed feelings regarding the metaverse and NFTs. Recently, the Zhejiang Province of China announced its plans to construct a metaverse industry. It was estimated to be worth more than $28.7 billion by 2025.